As you know, the House has passed three bills their supporters describe as "anti-smothering big government regulation" but which might more accurately be described as anti-safety, anti-science, pro-greed, and pro-pollution: the so-called Regulatory Accountability Act, the so-called Midnight Rules Relief Act, and the REINS Act, all of which would make it well-nigh impossible for Executive branch agencies to issue regulations to meet legislative ends, as many, many Congressional laws mandate that they do. Of course that's a legal hurdle not even a Justice Gorsuch could ignore, but why should we wait for that? You can use the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page to call your Senators and tell them to oppose all three bills. Mention them by name, and remind them that these bills will make our air and water dirtier and let financial predators take more of our money. And remember: saying so is nothing like Tea Party whining about "death panels," because the "death panels" story was fiction, whereas dirtier air and water and more financial predation are real worries.
Meanwhile, closer to home, a group of Pennsylvania state Senators have introduced SB 22, which would make redistricting of state and Congressional districts a lot fairer in Pennsylvania, and Rep. Samuelson (D-135) is apparently readying a companion bill for the House's consideration, so Common Cause helps you tell your Pennsylvania state Rep to support the effort to get state districts drawn more fairly. SB 22 would, as you know, take responsibility for drawing districts out of the legislature's hands -- the temptation to redraw legislative districts to benefit particular legislators or groups of legislators being particularly strong, and having fairly dire consequences for the popular will -- and put it in the hands of a five-member commission, consisting of Senate and House Majority and Minority leaders and a fifth, non-partisan Chair selected by the other four. Putting one party or the other in charge of redistricting tends to subvert the popular will, and the public can certainly make their will more apparent on Election Day in more evenly-drawn districts.
Finally, Pastor Horace McMillon has begun a petition on Organizefor.org which helps you tell Renault-Nissan Alliance to stop running ads with Breitbart. Hundreds of entities have decided to stop advertising on Breitbart's "news" site, but Nissan hasn't; corporations typically say they want to reach potential customers, and to do that you have to go where the eyeballs are going. But I say corporations have a moral duty to shame those organizations that deserve it, and shame the eyeballs that seek out those organizations. I'm also skeptical that Breitbart is really Where All the Cool Kids Are Now. Their man in the White House only got 46% of the vote, after all, and though he gets to do a lot of damage over the next four years as if he got 66%, I think the "liberal" media has overplayed the "ascendance" of the racist right in this country. Of course the racist right would disagree (and if they could stop "disagreeing" by spraying swastikas everywhere, that'd be nice), but they always vote for the Republican Presidential candidate, whether he keeps his racism to himself or not.
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